I think a lot of this comes from tax policy warping the market. California is the most egregious example because property taxes are locked in when the house was sold last. If you bought a house in the 70s for $20k that is now worth $1.2M and might happily downsize to a house worth $500k you aren’t going to because you would get hit with a massive property tax increase. It keeps a lot of homes better suited to families locked up with seniors who don’t need them.
“””It keeps a lot of homes better suited to families locked up with seniors who don’t need them.””””
When we were a more American society we knew about the tragedy of seniors in La Jolla who had picked out the ocean-view lots and built their homes in the 40s and 50s but were being driven out by high property taxes as the world moved in on them and made their homes very expensive.
I knew a lot of those seniors who could not afford the taxes on what were now multi-million dollar homes, we passed Prop 13 in 1978 to end some of the worst of the left’s abuses.